keenmaster486 wrote:

dr_st wrote:

Many modern operating systems attempt to intelligently preload applications in RAM (in Windows that started with Vista's Superfetch) exactly to achieve what you, as an end-user, want.

If Vista knew what I wanted, it would stay out of my RAM entirely!

Neither does Chrome stay put of your RAM 🤣 I have never seen a web browser eat so much RAM.

I only use memmaker or QEMM for managing my RAM.

bfcastello wrote:

keenmaster486 wrote:

dr_st wrote:

Many modern operating systems attempt to intelligently preload applications in RAM (in Windows that started with Vista's Superfetch) exactly to achieve what you, as an end-user, want.

If Vista knew what I wanted, it would stay out of my RAM entirely!

Neither does Chrome stay put of your RAM 🤣 I have never seen a web browser eat so much RAM.

Yes, I can still run my Macintosh Color Classic with 8mb of ram and surf the internet with Netscape Navigator 3x.
Same with my Win3x 486 computers and Netscape version 3x. and 8mb of ram.
Using a 33mhz CPU. ( 486 or Motorola ).

On a modern Win-10 PC you want to use Firefox. Stay away from Chrome.

Surprisingly, Internet Explorer 3 uses less RAM than Netscape Navigator 3. It's only when IE 4/5 came along that things started getting buggy and bad.

Maybe you just need to rethink your seemingly simplistic view of the world that "program that uses a lot of RAM is a bad program".

dr_st wrote:

Maybe you just need to rethink your seemingly simplistic view of the world that "program that uses a lot of RAM is a bad program".

Oh come on, I never said that.

For example I think Google Chrome / Chromium is a great program, despite the RAM usage.

I've upgraded my modern machines to 16 GB + so I don't care as much as I used to.

But when your RAM is scarce, you seek out lightweight programs, OS, etc.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Oh come on, I never said that. […]
Show full quote

dr_st wrote:

Maybe you just need to rethink your seemingly simplistic view of the world that "program that uses a lot of RAM is a bad program".

Oh come on, I never said that.

For example I think Google Chrome / Chromium is a great program, despite the RAM usage.

I've upgraded my modern machines to 16 GB + so I don't care as much as I used to.

But when your RAM is scarce, you seek out lightweight programs, OS, etc.

Can I recommend Firefox? If you don't like Firefox, can I ask you why? When I'm on a mac I use Safari. On Windows, I use Firefox. I have all major browsers installed on my mac (Safari, the new Edge, Firefox, Opera, Chrome) just for testing purposes at work.

I recently tested the new Edge with Chromium engine, on both macOS and Windows 10, and it's good, yes. I haven't tested enough to see RAM usage.

I don't like Chrome and Google, really.

dr_st wrote:

Maybe you just need to rethink your seemingly simplistic view of the world that "program that uses a lot of RAM is a bad program".

It's not simplistic, and it's a matter of good programming. Good programmers write good code, and good code uses almost little resources while he can keep its program working better and faster. Good programmers were able to fit a Mario Bros game in a 40kb cartridge. Come on.

When Microsoft builds a 1.5GB Office app, it can't be good programming. Modern programmers today are too lazy and use a lot of frameworks to achieve what they want. They aren't doing much coding. I firmly believe that it's possible to do MORE with LESS.

Chrome using a lot of RAM is only problematic because notebook manufacturers are going back to soldered 8GB ram models. Back in 2013 when my Thinkpad X230T came out it had two RAM banks and could be upgraded to 16GB.

6 years later - we need less RAM so people will buy a new computer every year!

At the supermarket around the corner they're even selling machines with 4GB memory. That's madness.

I agree that a lot of programs simply waste resources nowadays, though. Programmers have so many resources on hand that they simply don't care. That's why it sometimes takes longer to log off a website than to log back in for example. 🤣

bfcastello wrote:

Can I recommend Firefox? If you don't like Firefox, can I ask you why?

I used to be a big fan and user of Firefox. Then, years ago, when Mozilla started making what looked a bunch of changes for the sake of changes, I got a little annoyed, and found some solace with forks like Pale Moon. Later Mozilla went even further down the route of "Google Chrome is winning, so let's copy it to stay relevant", while Pale Moon decided to stick to the old UI, and old paradigms. Unfortunately that was a battle they could only lose. The web doesn't care about standards, all it cares about is making sure things work in the latest versions of the 2-3 mainstream browsers. So web compatibility started suffering big time with Mozilla forks that diverged too much. Pale Moon team introduced Basilisk to supposedly close the gap, and then they upgraded Pale Moon to a new code base and new engine, but if you keep on doing that - what is really the point? You are just chasing a train that's left the station long ago.

When I'm on a mac I use Safari. On Windows, I use Firefox. I have all major browsers installed on my mac (Safari, the new Edge, Firefox, Opera, Chrome) just for testing purposes at work.

I recently tested the new Edge with Chromium engine, on both macOS and Windows 10, and it's good, yes. I haven't tested enough to see RAM usage.

bfcastello wrote:

I don't like Chrome and Google, really.

Neither do I, but then again, I don't want to go back to Mozilla because I don't see the point of using a browser that just wants to be a clone of the other browser. For now I switched over so Slimjet - it's Chromium-based, but not tied to Google, and is a tad more tweakable. It's also been fast, and their legacy version for XP/Vista is a bit more compatible with the modern web than what I'm used to from Pale Moon's legacy versions.

bfcastello wrote:

It's not simplistic, and it's a matter of good programming. Good programmers write good code, and good code uses almost little resources while he can keep its program working better and faster. Good programmers were able to fit a Mario Bros game in a 40kb cartridge. Come on.

It is simplistic. In the past everyone had to work with scarce resources. Nowadays, resources are abundant. They allow programmers to be less concerned with resource usage, and more concerned with the use cases they are trying to enable / problems they are trying to solve. This situation allows more impressive programs to be developed faster, and things be done in code that 20-30 years ago (when people were busy fitting Mario in a 40KB cartridge) were just science fiction.

Simplistic or not, they still write bad code. I know a modern game which first version was pretty good, then they handed the development to another team and the second version was indeed powerful, but required a better GPU and had been written with really bad code. So I threw the game to the bin. I can’t be arsed to buy a new GPU every time a new version of a game is released just because stupid developers can’t code better. Older games with older rendering engines which could compete with them had a smaller code, footprint and a less strong system requirements. One of these games were upgraded by fans and when you put screenshots of both side by side, it’s impressive how a 2002 game could look so good upgraded against a 2007 (and his 2013 second version) game. Hence why I reverted back to this game.

I am a developer, I can code better than some with less resources and come up with something better than them. Todays developers code is terrible. If they could write better, then their code not only would work with simpler system requirements, but also even better on higher system requirements. It should run smoothly no matter where it is running. If your code requires the latest and strongest pc/mac to be run, then I am sorry but this code is garbage.

chrome requires a pentium pro or newer.

And about Firefox, I can agree with you, but the mac version now is quite decent to use, really good, and I can customize the UI to my liking. But on mac, Safari is my main browser, Firefox comes in a close second place, tied with the new Edge. Opera and Chrome are dead to me. And the Windows version of Firefox now is indeed terrible - I would also use Pale Moon but thanks to the new Edge chromium, I don’t have to...

Chrome requires [sarcasm] 128GB of ram [/sarcasm] to run “smoothly”.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Since making this thread, I was bitten by the Thinkpad bug.

I know that bite. Had the 365CD. Have the X201. That one needs a new display ribbon cable. I'm resisting. I don't really /need/ the X201, but oh it's so nice, such lovely keys...

But anyway, another observation on recent laps as support-guy for friends: Lenovo does proper support with BIOS updates. Asus does not. HP has been middling, but turned out to be a reject anyways because you have to leave Windows installed to run things like their battery-number-checker during the last recall. Won't buy theirs again next time.

Particularly I'm looking at these.
X1 Carbon 5th Gen (excellent! got lucky on the keyboard lottery.)
Asus UX301L
HP X360 2017

All on Linux Mint, 'of course.' The HP had to keep W10, and we simply got lucky that the existing install allowed enough partition space for Linux. It's ridiculous but that's another shopping lottery. Sometimes you can have 'fixed' MS partitions that are right in the middle of what you need.

bfcastello wrote:

I am a developer, I can code better than some with less resources and come up with something better than them. Todays developers code is terrible. If they could write better, then their code not only would work with simpler system requirements, but also even better on higher system requirements. It should run smoothly no matter where it is running. If your code requires the latest and strongest pc/mac to be run, then I am sorry but this code is garbage.

Sounds like you have the skill to be a giant among dwarfs then, and really bring disruptive technology to the world. Why don't you?

Because I prefer to do design instead of programming 😀 I can’t (and I don’t want to) work with programmers that are lazy enough to throw some frameworks on a project and say it’s ready... plus my passion was always design.

I would still go with a MacBook Pro. But for windows what about this?
https://youtu.be/LTdBOOOq39g

Lenovo yoga C940 is sold by Best Buy stores.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-yoga-c940 … p?skuId=6369421

Just picked up a refurbished Lenovo W550s for $350 shipped. It's in great shape, built like a tank, has Win10Pro, with gorgeous 2880x1620 display. Came with an i7-5500U, dedicated Nvidia Quadro K620M in addition to the integrated Intel HD5500, 8GB RAM (upgradeable to 16) and 256GB SSD. It has two batteries and something like 10-15 hrs of battery life. Keyboard is backlit, with Intel wifi and ethernet ports, blah, blah, blah. I love getting high end stuff that's a few years old for almost a tenth of its original price. It's pretty heavy for its size, so it's probably more suited to sitting on a desk than a lap, but it's a good option to consider if you're not dead set on brand new.

Another aspect that can be checked is vendor use of the Linux Vendor Firmware Service.

[" The Linux Vendor Firmware Service is a secure portal which allows hardware vendors to upload firmware updates. This site is used by all major Linux distributions to provide metadata for clients such as fwupdmgr and GNOME Software. "]

Dell and Lenovo rock this. They are very keen on getting updates to the people who've bought their stuff.

Others, not so much. Many have recently decided it looks good to be listed, so have opened "Test Accounts" -- they've registered, but haven't proceed with uploading firmware yet.

Vendor List
https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/

i don't even bother with windows consumer level laptops... almost all of them have some severe flaw with them... the screen, keyboard, touchpad, ports, expansion, or any combination of them. so i just stick to the HP elitebooks/Z-books, Dell Latitude 7000 line/Precision, and the ThinkPad T, X, P series